Haha, Zaphod Beelbelbrox, I considered the profundity of the mantra "Fuck God" this morning and found it very profound. I suppose we might have both been thinking along similar lines.
-----Original Message----- From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of TurquoiseB Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:25 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] The Sunday Market at Anduze Sunday mornings I have kind of a routine. I know that it's very un-Castaneda-like to *have* a routine, but there you jolly well are, aren't you. I like it, so it's become a routine for me, a weekly ritual that I look forward to. I get up, shower, meditate, and then drive 20 kilometers or so to the marché at Anduze. It's a fairly big one, filling the entire parking lot of the Super U and the adjacent empty field next to it and, unlike many of the other marchés in the area, it's not overly commercialized. Some of the marchés have the same stands every week, professional retailers who have figured out that they don't need to pay for a storefront in order to make a living. But at Anduze it's an equal mix of marché and vide grenier (literally "empty the attic"), and so there's almost always something there to surprise you. I like surprises. I spend some time wandering around the stalls, seeing whether anything attracts me enough to buy it, and then I walk into town and sit at my favorite café, drinking coffee and cognac and writing shit like this on my laptop for as long as its little battery holds out. This morning the marché reminded me of the "New Fair- field Life," and the reminder made me smile. I wandered past dozens of stands, each one a reflection of the consciousness of the person who had set it up, each one enticing passersby to stop and browse and perhaps share a conversation, even if they're not interested in buying anything that's on sale there. This morning, possibly as a result of the discipline I've learned on the "New FFL," I was able to get all the way through the marché without doing much damage to my wallet. From one stand I bought some incense, and at another I bought two DVDS -- Milos Forman's Amadeus and Claude Lelouch's marvelous Toute une vie (What Now My Love, in its English release). The latter was quite a find; it's fairly rare and I've been searching for it for several years now, and it only cost me nine Euros, new. There were two other items I considered buying, and I'm still sitting here at the café thinking about them, so they obviously have their samskaric hooks into me, and there is some possibility that I might still go back and buy them. The first was a stuffed badger. Yes, I did say "stuffed badger." You're probably waiting for the punchline, or for an explanation of what "stuffed badger" is a euphemism for in French. No such luck. It was a stuffed badger. With its mouth open, snarling, and with bright red blood painted dripping from its teeth and jaws. I saw it and just stood there shell- shocked, wondering first who would have *done* this, and second *why*. It was SO ugly that the Zaphod ("Anything for a weird life.") Beebelbrox in me just had to have it. And then near it, in an adjacent stall, I saw an antique Catholic prayer stand from a church, on which the believer is supposed to kneel, place his or her hands on the raised rest provided for such things, and pray. In a flash my mind had bought both objects, placed the badger ON the prayer stand, as if in deep communion with God, and installed the whole artwork in my living room as a conversation piece. I've definitely been spending far too much time with my neighbor R. Crumb. Fortunately -- or not, depending on one's point of view -- this artistic epiphany was followed shortly afterwards by sanity, and both the badger and the prayer stand are still in their stalls back at the marché. But I have to walk past them again on my way back to my car, so weirdness may still happen this Sunday morning. :-) Anyway, the part of this coffee-and-cognac tale that relates to Fairfield Life is the marché itself. I LIKE the "New FFL." I think it's just bloody WONDERFUL. The five-post limit has introduced an element of structure and discipline to a forum -- and a membership -- that were IMO badly in need of both. And I happily include myself in that generalized opinion. Before the "New FFL," I was in the situation of wander- ing through a marché with my pockets bulging with cash, knowing that I could stop at any stand, discuss the merchandise on sale there, and buy anything that caught my eye. I was never placed in the position of thinking, "Can I afford this? Do I really want to spend my time and my energy here?" Now I have those thoughts when I read Fairfield Life, and I think that's a Good Thing. Part of me still longs to reply to a couple of dozen posts a day, especially now that some olde favorite posters like Shemp have rejoined us. But I don't. I ration my posts, like a French family rationing its tiny social security check. Some of the people wandering in the stands of the marché with me this morning are in exactly that position. This is not the most affluent area of France, and for many of these people spending two Euros on a used dress in a stall at the Anduze marché is as big a splurge as buying a new suit from Kenzo in Paris might be for me. So I guess I'm writing this to thank Rick for imple- menting the policies that have led to the "New FFL." Long may it wave. I have learned much of value from it, and hope to learn more in the future. And thanks also to those here who have "gotten" what he was trying to accomplish, and have supported it. If I don't respond to many of your posts here, it isn't because I don't appreciate them. It's just that I'm on a budget, and that's a Good Thing. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links
